Thursday, July 31, 2008

Little Miss Katelyn had her 2-year-old check-up last week. We did it about a month before her 2nd birthday because she starts pre-school in a couple of weeks and needed an updated physical.

Katelyn weighed in a 23 lbs and is 33 inches tall. I talked to the pediatrician about her awful eating habits. As in- she doesn't eat. She has a bite or two from every meal and that's it. Its been driving me crazy. The pediatrician said as long as what she is eating is healthy foods then everything is ok. She is growing normally and her weight is fine. Ok.

We also talked about her eczema which is getting worse. My poor girl scratches her little legs all day long. Her legs and arms are a mess with the rash and scabs from where she bleeds. Right now she is using a prescription hydrocortisone and lotions. The Dr. gave me some Zyrtec to try out and see if that helps. We are also going to go get her tested for allergies in a couple of weeks.

Everything else is going good. Her language and motor skills are right on tract. And one of the behavioral developments at this age is to "resist bedtime" and "likes to respond with "no". Oh yeah- that's my girl!

Aren't they cute? They are call Sassy Sunpops. To encourage moms to turn snack time into an opportune time for good nutrition and family fun, the Kellogg Company has teamed up with family life expert Deb Geigis Berry and registered dietitian Rachel Brandeis to give moms a way to create healthier snacks for their kids while spending quality time with their kids. The initiative is called Snacktivate, and it helps moms incorporate kids into meal planning and preparation by providing healthy recipes and snack options that are as much fun to make as they are to eat.

Even if time is limited, Kellogg offers some great grab-and-go, healthy choices including classic Rice Krispies Treats® Original Squares, with four B vitamins and 90 calories each, and Nutri-Grain® cereal bars made with real fruit and whole oats can be easily packed in the game bag or stored in the car for long trips.

The wonderful people at Kelloggs sent me 2 boxes of Frosted Mini Wheats and the instructions on how to make the Sassy Sunpops. They were so easy and fun to make. I had to use 60 crushed Mini Wheats in the recipe. So of course you know that Gavin had a super fun time helping me crush those up!! And of course he loved the final outcome of the cookie:

Monday, July 28, 2008

On to another post of our St Augustine vacation. Of course no vacation is complete without a visit to Ripleys Believe It or Not. Ken, Danyelle, and I had been there on our previous trip to St Augustine, but now we had Gavin and Katelyn who could also share in the fun!

They didn't allow strollers inside the museum so Katelyn was let loose. And boy was she happy. Running away from me into other rooms made her very happy. Gavin LOVED all of the different illusions and hands on stuff. There are so many neat artifacts and unique things to see. We all had a great time. Unfortunately my camera died while we were in there so I didn't get that many pictures.

Here is Gavin, Danyelle, and Katelyn posing with the Kodiak Alaska bear for Aunt Gina!!

Another place on our to-do list to see was the Castillo De San Marcos . Construction began on this incredible fort in 1672 and was completed in 1695. This is another structure in St Augustine that is made out of coquina shells and sand. The Castillo has defended the shores of St Augustine many times.

The fort is open to the public to take tours of the inside, but we chose just to walk the outside of the grounds. First off, the heat and humidity here are killers. We knew that there was no way we could walk the tour in the blazing Florida sun with dying of heat stroke! Although Gavin was disappointed we didn't go in, we promised we would take a drive back up here later in the year when the weather cools off just to go to the fort.

And we also had a good time looking out into the bay at the boats and looking at the lighthouse in the distance.

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Thursday, July 24, 2008

We spent last week in St. Augustine for our summer vacation. St Augustine is the nations oldest city. It truly is a very beautiful city to visit. Such beautiful architecture and so much history!!

This is our second time vacationing here and we still didn't do everything that we wanted too.

We arrived late in the evening. After checking into our hotel and getting unpacked, we headed out to drive around the city. We spend about and hour driving around plotting what we were going to do during the week. We then headed back to the hotel to eat dinner and relax.

One of the things we did while we were there was ride the sightseeing train tour. This trolley took us all over town stopping at over 21 different places to get off and on. All the while with the trolley driver narrating the history of St. Augustine.

We also spent some time walking the old streets of the city. We stopped at the beautiful Grace Methodist Church. This old church was built in 1887.

Here is Ken, Gavin, and Danyelle sitting in front of the city gates.

These gates opened in1793 and were the only access into St. Augustine. They closed at sundown and were not opened again until sunrise. They are made entirely out of coquina shells and sand. Pretty neat to touch. Gavin loved the idea that "real" pirates built the gates. He was so excited to touch them!

This is Gavin and I sitting in front of the Castillo De San Marcos:

We had a good time walking down St. George street. Gavin and Katelyn got the picture in front of a huge old anchor and then Ken and Gavin posed in front of an old mill wheel.

We also spend quite a lot of time in the center of town in the "old market". We all had to have some time around all the old cannons.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

An award! Lisa over at JujuBoo gave me this award. Thanks so much Lisa. She wrote : "There are lots of blogs I enjoy on a regular basis for very different reasons, but all of you make me smile." Lisa received the award from Gail at Squared Off who originated the award.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

We are home from vacation ( sniff sniff). We got back yesterday afternoon. Its always a little depressing coming home from vacation. All the laundry that needs to be done, stuff needs to be put away, and you are back to real life.

We went to St. Augustine for our vacation this year and had a great time. I have tons of pictures to post and stories to tell about our trip. But for right now, the laundry is calling my name.

I will leave you with a VERY funny story from our trip.

One of the days we were there we visited St. Augustine's lighthouse. After climbing to the top of the lighthouse ( more on that later ), we went into the little lighthouse museum. Lots of neat things in there including this:

Is that beautiful or what. A hand cranked record player. Anyway, on to the funny part. When we got over to it I hear Danyelle say "Wow Gavin, look at this!"

Gavin walks over and says " What is that?"

Danyelle's answer? "This is what they played CD's on in the olden days."

OMG- Ken and I nearly fell on the floor with laughter. And the look on Danyelle's face was priceless because she couldn't understand why we were laughing!

Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend :) Vacation updates this week!

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Why do I always find spilled milk on my newly mopped floors?? I think Katelyn sees clean floors as a whole new canvas to dirty up. And I am not kidding here, within minutes of the mopped floors drying I will find a puddle of milk. Every. Single. Time.

She's a sneaky girl I tell you.

Trying to drive me insane.

*****This was a scheduled post- we are on vacation this week :) Vacation updates next week.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Gavin's actual birthday was this past Thursday. We celebrated by taking him to McDonald's for dinner ( his choice ) and then letting Danyelle, Katelyn, and Gavin play in the play area for a little while. When we got home we sang happy birthday and had homemade cake.

This past Saturday was his big birthday bash with friends and family. We rented an inflatable water slide to keep everyone cooled off in this heat! Gavin had 3 friends from school come and that made him very happy. Here is Gavin sliding down with 2 of the boys from school. Gavin is on the far right:

Next is Gavin and cousin Ryan:

Gavin and his best buddies from school:

Everyone had a great time on the slide- even Danyelle and Alexis:

We all took a break from the slide to go in the house to open presents and have some cake.Of course we couldn't keep the kids away from the slide for too long- so after cake everyone went back outside.

This is the view from the back of the slide where they climbed up:The rest of the day was filled with non stop sliding fun. The company didnt come back to pick up the slide until about 730 so we had a very long day! Long enough that the grown ups put on bathing suits and fought with the kids over who was going down next!

Thanks to all of our family and friends for coming to help us celebrate Gavin's 6th birthday. We love you guys!

***PS We are leaving for vacation in a couple of hours. yay! We will be gone for the rest of the week. No worries though- I have some scheduled posts to keep you entertained while I am gone!

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Happy 6th Birthday to you!!! I cannot believe you are 6 years old already. 6 years ago today you came into this world at 9:33am. I was so happy to finally meet you.

So much has happened in 6 short years! This past year you started kindergarten. You really didn't like going to school at first. It took you a couple of weeks to get used to being in school all day long. But once you liked it you really had a good time. Your best buddies in kindergarten were Jimmy, Raymond, Kenny, Brandon, and Mason. You also told me you really liked a girl named Hannah and you were sad when she moved to Kentucky!

You also played Tball and Basketball this year. You did so great on both of your teams. You have such an interest in every single sport and say you want to try to play all of them. You are also still in Karate and got your orange belt and are so happy with yourself.

You also lost your 4 bottom teeth this past year and had wonderful visits from the tooth fairy!

Your favorite shows to watch right now are Spongebob, Icarly, Drake & Josh, Batman, Superman, and thanks to Nick at Nite you are now watching reruns of Family Matters with Steve Urkel.

Lets see..... You love to help me in the kitchen. You are always right next to me whenever I am cooking to help me measure and stir.

You also have a great big imagination! You love playing with all of your action figures ( spiderman, superman, power rangers, star wars.....just to name a few ). You can spend hours playing with them while they do all of their battles. You love playing Guitar Hero with Danyelle. And you also like to play the Wii.

You always like to spend time with your cousin Ryan. You two get into a lot of trouble together!!

You are still my little cuddle bug though. I can always count on you to give me hugs and kisses whenever I need them. And you still let me hold you on my lap and cuddle you for as long as I want. You have such a great personality Gavin. You are so caring for others and you don't like to see anyone else sad. I love you soooo much birthday boy. I know your day is going to be wonderful!